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SPINNAKER NETWORKS EXPANDS OPEN STORAGE OPTIONS

Spinnaker Networks, a leading supplier of next-generation, distributed storage systems, announced an expansion of the open storage connectivity options for its SpinServer NAS gateways, enabling SpinServer customers to consolidate and share Fibre Channel-based storage systems from IBM across all file- and block-based applications. The enterprise SpinServer NAS gateways now support connectivity to IBM's TotalStorage FAStT Series of SAN-based storage servers. This latest storage option follows Spinnaker's support for LSI Logic's E-Series storage systems.

Spinnaker's NAS gateway and open storage initiative deliver consolidated storage solutions that allow enterprises to leverage SANs to provide the physical storage for both block-level and file-level applications. Spinnaker's NAS gateway delivers an ideal approach for NAS-SAN consolidation by providing lower overall TCO, investment protection for installed SAN-based storage, no single vendor lock-in, and the ability for customers to maintain preferred vendors and established purchasing and support policies.

"NAS gateways provide several benefits for enterprises: a common storage pool, unified storage management for NAS and SAN, and better investment protection," said Robert Passmore, research director at Gartner. "The NAS gateway concept was born out of SAN consolidation and a NAS gateway solution that scales with the SAN and maintains a single file system brings customer value."

The SpinServer NAS gateway combines the best of NAS from Spinnaker with the best of SAN from industry-leading vendors to provide a solution that scales for any enterprise application. Spinnaker integrates its global distributed file system, SpinFS, to provide the industry's most scalable NAS gateway. SpinFS scales a file system across 1 to 512 SpinServers of performance and from 2 to 11,000 terabytes of capacity.

"Enterprise customers are looking to maximize the ROI of their storage investment, and Spinnaker's open storage connectivity program directly addresses this need," said Jeff Hornung, vice president of marketing at Spinnaker. "Leveraging a SpinServer NAS gateway solution allows our customers to significantly improve utilization of existing storage resources and dramatically simplify enterprise NAS storage management by consolidating multiple classes of storage from multiple vendors in a single, global storage pool."

By adopting an open storage, standards-based approach to NAS, Spinnaker makes it easy for customers to integrate SpinServer clusters into their existing environments. Customers can deploy any mix of multiple storage classes -- including Fibre Channel, SAN and ATA -- behind a single NAS gateway or behind a cluster of NAS gateways. This allows users to deploy the most cost-effective storage based on the requirements of the specific applications and provides the convenience of managing all storage classes in a single global namespace. Spinnaker's unique SpinMove file movement software ensures that data can be easily and non-disruptively migrated between classes of storage and across vendor platforms.

Spinnaker also provides a complete storage solution with its own branded storage, SpinStor, for those customers who do not have a preferred disk vendor or have not previously purchased equipment they wish to utilize.